A Case Study Of Personalized Psychological Health Intervention Among Vocational Nursing College Students Before Their Clinical Practice

BackgroundWith the adjustment of the level of nursing education in China, Vocational nursing students will become the main force of the nursing profession. Before formally joined the nursing profession, they must go through clinical practice, which is essential for completing college study. The clinical practice, during which they must make contact with patients directly, is also a transition period from school learning to social learning. Because various problems they worry about increase before their internship, their mental health status declines, which interfere with learning and nursing practice as well as patients satisfaction. A lot of literature shows that proper intervention of psychological education before nursing practice is one of the feasible solutions. But till now, those interventions lake of theoretical basis and personalized intervention. So at the aim of improving metal health status of vocational nursing students and help them to go through nursing practice with a more positive attitude, it is necessary to strengthen the mental health interventions before clinical practice.ObjectiveThe study, based on investigating the condition of psychological health and main stress factors of three-year vocational nursing students before nursing practice, aims at improving their mental health status through personalized mental health interventions on the basis of social support theory and evaluating the effectiveness of these interventions.MethodsIn a typical case method, three-year nursing students of grade2009and2010enrolling in from one vocational college in shanghai were investigated.For all493nursing students of grade2009, we investigated mental health status and stress factor before their internship through self-administered questionnaires. For all394nursing students from8classes of grade2010, we investigated mental health status and stress factor at the beginning of a semester before their internship through self-administered questionnaires. The next, randomly selected4classes as interventional group and the other4classes as control group, set up one-month parallel controlled study. The intervention measures included giving personalized help by modern communicating equipment, developing vocational protection training, mental training and theme class meeting. Finally we investigated mental health status and stress factor again for all nursing students of grade2010before their internship through self-administered questionnaires. ResultsThe scores of anxiety and depression level of vocational nursing students before nursing practice were respectively32.14±6.28and36.05±7.97,were poorer than the Norm.The result indicated that the psychological conditions of vocational nursing students were poor.Over60%vocational nursing students self-reported having11mental stress factors before nursing practice period like worrying about weak theoretical knowledge, unskilled operation skills, poor communication skills and the risk of diseases. The result showed that they are under heavy psychological pressure.There were differences in mental health status of students with various economic conditions and health status. The mental health status of students with good economic conditions and health status was better than the others.After intervention, the score of anxiety of interventional group declined from31.34±6.03to29.66±6.00, the difference was significant(p=0.007); the score of depression of interventional group declined from35.14±7.17to33.49±7.28, the difference was significant(p=0.027); The first and the second scores of anxiety of control group were respectively31.41±6.48and31.47±6.42, the difference was not significant; The first and the second scores of depression of control group were respectively36.07±8.15and36.25±7.63,the difference was not significant. For all nursing students of grade2010before clinical practice, the intervention group’s mental health was much better than the control one. Meanwhile there were statistical differences in four stress factors between interventional and control groups. Some of the pressure factors were eased in the intervention group before nursing practice than the control group.Discussion and conclusionNursing students are under poor mental health status and heavy psychological pressure before nursing practice, so they need interventions. Especially for those students of poor economic status and physical health, higher vocational colleges should take more measures to improve mental health of nursing students before nursing practice.Personalized interventions on the basis of the social support theory are capable to effectively improve mental health status of nursing students before nursing practice as well as ease some psychological pressure. So the interventions are worth popularizing in higher vocational college.Still a lot of stress factors have not been alleviated. Higher vocational colleges should take more measures to improve mental health of nursing students before nursing practice.